Back Next The Holy Mother

In midweek
I came into her altar
]and by her round table
that held her round stone
I recited my dreams
dreams revealing my sins
accusers accusing me
"oh mother I have sinned
here and sinned there
Mother forgive me!"
I waited for my dreams
to change
I waited for deeper dreams
5 years
5 long years
I waited for such dreams
and yet
only the accusers
with their mundane nonsense
imaged forth
"Oh mother," I said,
"I'll never reach
the Godhead."
and mother kept nodding
warmly and lovingly nodding
Finally one day I arrived
and murdered mother
tore down her church
and murdered mother
and then at last
a real vision arose
I saw the vastness of a field
I did not plow
and my steel stubbornness
against doing so.
So I washed mother's head
and out back the blood
and told mother that if
there is a God
I don't believe in him
and before mother could nod
with an acceptance
I left.

Irwin R. Shaw - March 5th 1985